


a saint is a sinner who keeps trying

by hasitsclaws



Category: From Dusk Till Dawn: The Series
Genre: F/M, slightly dub-con
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-06
Updated: 2015-09-06
Packaged: 2018-04-19 08:45:03
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,629
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4740137
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hasitsclaws/pseuds/hasitsclaws
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The five times Kate dreamed of Richie Gecko, and the one time she didn't.</p>
            </blockquote>





	a saint is a sinner who keeps trying

**Author's Note:**

  * For [grayglube](https://archiveofourown.org/users/grayglube/gifts).



> For gg who prompted me with richie/kate 'don't trust me' on tumblr. Well, babe, i decided to make a fic of it. Sorry if it's shit, but I haven't written in a zillion years and you inspired me to give it a crack again so yeah. (Special shoutout to oyb too bc ily.)

 

 

Sometimes she dreams of him; she knows that Seth does, too. She wonders if it’s longing or prophecy, but never has the chance to ask. He comes and goes as he pleases, but he never leaves without taking something first.

 

1.

The first time they’re by the side of that motel pool again, and her offers her a cigarette, lights it with his hand on fire from the sun. The smoke tastes the way Seth’s drugs smell, vile, sickening. She keeps smoking it anyways, even as Richie takes off dark sunglasses and sits at the edge of her chair, his eyes serpent yellow in the dying light.

“Can’t hide what you are in dreams,” Richie says.

“There’s no beds for monsters to hide under here,” Kate answers.

Richie flinches, visibly stung. They sit in silence and smoke for a while, the sun fading until it’s nothing but darkness and the Maya underworld painted in constellations above their heads.

“You know, the first thought I had of you when I saw you in that pool was that you were holy,” he says eventually, flicking his cigarette butt onto the blood drenched patio.

“What was the second?” she challenges.

He shifts closer to her on the edge of the chair. “I wanted to rip that little bikini off of you and fuck you until all that innocence ran out.”

Kate tsks her tongue, may once have been appalled at his language, but she’s lived with his brother a month now and crude words are nothing new. “Charming, Richie.”

“I never claimed to be a saint,” he says.

“You always wanted to be a sinner,” Kate accuses. “You and Seth both.”

“It’s safer to be cruel in this world, Kate,” Richie sighs. “Being innocent only makes you a target-- power doesn’t come without blood.”

“What about the blood of other innocents?” Kate sneers, curling her legs up when he’s near her ankles, the serpent offering her the forbidden fruit.

“Survival of the fittest,” Richie says.

Kate shakes her head, recoils when his fingertips prod at her knees, inching between them until they’re sticky from sweat and Kate’s legs fall open weakly. “Being kind doesn’t make you weak,” Kate argues, but his touch is slithering and there’s something about this heat.

God help her, the first time she saw him in this very same place in a different world, he’d made her knees tremble. His stare made her burn, her belly thick with desire when he smiled at her. She’d felt so grown up, flirting with him. She felt in control, less like a little girl whose world was falling apart. She was playing with fire.

But she’d still wanted him more in the temple. After they’d kissed she fought the urge to stay and that’d been why she ran like the devil was at her heels. Not because Seth had caught them, but because if he hadn’t she might’ve let Richie have her right then and there, strip her bare and fuck her in the V.I.P. of a Mexican titty bar.

Still she wants him now, even. After all the pain and grief and thievery. She will not have him.

The blood on the pavement makes her feet slip when she tries to run again, afraid of her own desires, and she splashes into the pool. Blood begins to pour from her chest the moment she hits the water, turning it as violent red as the patio. Kate floats belly-up to the surface, paralyzed as Richie dives sharp beneath the ruddy waves.

He comes up next to her, shaking blood from his hair. And suddenly his eyes are blue again, he’s wearing his glasses, his mouth is not venomous when he kisses her.

She is weak, taking part like communion and letting him pull her under the surface to drown her...

Kate wakes with a gasp in the motel room she and Seth are renting for the week. Checks for Richie, for blood. There’s nothing but the sound of the cheap A.C. and Seth whimpering in his sleep.

 

2.

She almost gets eaten by a culebra two weeks later, so, of course, she dreams of him again. Opens her eyes and they’re on that couch in the temple again, but completely naked, and his hand is between her thighs and she feels ashamed.

“You’re all tore up,” Richie says, licking at scrapes on her neck, free hand prodding at bruises that bloom like constellations on her milky skin.

Kate looks away from him. “What are you doing?” she asks, his hand warm between her thighs, still, but heavy and she’s wet and aching and she cannot catch her breath.

“I’ve always wanted you, Kate,” he says cooly.

“You have Santanico now,” she whispers.

He pulls away from her sharply, tilts her chin with his fingers. still sticky with her arousal. “Maybe I wanted the sun and settled for the moon instead.”

“You’re the brother that always chooses the moon,” Kate says, rips away from his touch and falls towards the floor, lands awake in her bed seething, body coiled in pain from all the injuries she got from that snake.

She grabs her pillow and stuffs it against her face, screaming in exasperation; Seth doesn’t wake.

 

3.

They’re running and running and running from Seth’s stupid plan gone wrong. The sirens have long since faded into the distance but they keep going, Seth barking at her to keep up as they scramble over rocky terrain until suddenly she’s flying backwards, sharp pain in her skull and phosphones making her blind.

When she can see again, the world is dark, stale. She’s tied to the altar in the middle of the Twister, wrists and ankles bound, limbs stretched out like a sick game of Operation. Panic settles in her chest and she opens her mouth to scream when suddenly Richie is kissing her, making a slow trail down her body until his shoulders have her knees spread wide open. Kate whimpers as he licks softly up between her thighs, mouth wrapping around her clit and sucking until she feels white noise sensation, been so long since she’s felt anything other than afraid that feeling good makes her go crazy and she doesn’t tell him to stop.

“Do you trust me, Kate?” Richie asks, his mouth wet from her, lips swollen and dangerous, his pupils blown and irises yellow behind his glasses.

Kate gasps as his fangs come out. “Richie!” she cries, and just as he bites her, Seth throws a canteen full of water on her face and she wakes up sputtering, thrashing, afraid she’s still tied down.

“Jesus, Katie,” Seth says as she struggles limply, body still numb from being knocked out. Seth has her head in his lap, letting her fuss until she settles from exhaustion. He sighs, checks the blow to the head she got from falling; his fingers come away crimson. “We gotta get you safe, baby girl,” he says.

Kate’s too busy looking at her wrists to answer him, the scrapes there from skin bound by rope

 

4.

The next time she dreams of him she’s fully dressed in the car Seth took from the Twister that got stolen months ago. Richie’s driving, foot pushing down on the pedal. He’s wearing the Bible salesman suit again, and it’s a bloody mess. They’re speeding forwards and Kate’s vision spins and rattlesnakes rumble from the desert highway.

“I want to wake up,” she says.

“Then wake up,” Richie answers.

Closing her eyes, Kate tries to will herself into consciousness, only to open her eyes and find herself in the RV, stale from months of vacancy. She stumbles around for a moment, catching herself on the kitchen unit. It feels like the thing is driving over mountains, dipping and curving and bouncing as dust shakes from the ceiling. Kate cries out as the next bump in the road sends her flying into the bedroom.

She lands face-first in the mildewy pillows, looks over to find Richie laying next to her staring at the ceiling and groans in annoyance. “Y’know, I somehow always knew you’d taste like prairie grass and peaches,” he says.

“My blood?” she asks, sickened.

Richie shakes his head, chuckles. “Your pussy, Katie-Cakes.” Kate blushes, because though she is used to obscene she’s never had to be in the middle of it before she met the Geckos. “Still don’t know what your blood tastes like-- bet it’s delicious.”

Kate scoffs, dry sound turning into a shout as the RV comes to a sudden halt. After getting her bearings back Kate peers past the curtains and finds that they’re parked outside of her old house, sitting quiet in Bethel.

She blinks and she and Richie are in her childhood bedroom. It still has the same blue walls, twin bed, stuffed animals. Richie toys with the jewelry laid out on her dresser, avoiding the crosses. “Did your boyfriend ever fuck you here?”

A scowl, her nose wrinkled, scorn, she turns away. He approaches her softly, like a viper ready to strike. His hands slither around her shoulders. “Ever think about my big brother fucking you here, Katie-Cakes, his hands all bloody on your skin as he makes you say your precious Lord’s name in ecasity?”

Throat dry, Kate does not answer. She isn’t immune to biology, to the way Seth smells, fresh and dark like Richie, dust and gunpowder and cordite. To how their hands encompass her whole, like a man’s, heavy, warm, strong. Kyle’s hands always were so fragile, tender.

She is not made of glass though, and Richie knows this. Tosses her on the bed like a ragdoll and makes her yelp as he pins her down, ass over the edge and her face buried in the flowered sheets. “Maybe if I fuck you like a whore, you won’t be so holy anymore.”

“Richie, please,” she begs, eyes watering as he grabs roughly at her hips. She can feel him hard against her ass, and all she can think is not like this, not like this.

She wakes up sobbing, and for once Seth is lucid enough to wake. He crawls into bed next to her without saying anything, kind for the first time since she’s met him. They do not touch, but having his solid weight next to her in bed makes her feel safer, and she wonders if he was dreaming of Richie, too.

 

5.

The last time she dreams of him is after she leaves Seth.

They’re in her daddy’s church and Kate is kneeling at altar. Richie wraps his arms around her from behind, dirty hands crawling over her best Sunday dress until he’s got her skirt hiked up and his palm between her thighs. Kate keeps her hands steepled as he rubs at her clit in soft circles until she’s dripping wet, slides one finger into her softly. Biting her lip, she tries not to cry out, fails when he adds a second finger suddenly and she feels jarringly full.

“So your church boy never did pop your cherry, huh?” Richie purrs. “Who were you saving it for, Katie? Your husband or your God?”

“Myself,” Kate gasps. “I wasn’t ready.”

“Are you ready now?” Richie asks.

She coos as he circles his thumb against her clit again. “I don’t know.”

He lets go of her then and pushes her forwards, she falls with a shriek and lands in the bloody pool water again, struggling. It feels like invisible arms are dragging her down to the bottom. Kate kicks and claws and prays until finally her head resurfaces and she’s laying in the graveyard where her mother is buried and her father never could be.

“Do you stay holy because she asked you to?” Richie asks, standing next to her mother’s gravestone in a sharp black suit, wearing those dark sunglasses again though it’s raining and gray everywhere. He watches as Kate gasps to regain her breath, smoking a cigarette cooly.

When she’s finally composed again, Kate stands and brushes off her muddy knees. “I’ve lost everything because of your Goddess, Richie,” Kate whispers. “I refuse to lose my hope, too.”

Richie strikes quick like a cotton mouth, latches onto her mean and shakes her until Kate’s brain rattles. “You know nothing about her,” he spits, venom dripping at the corners of his mouth.

“I know that she’s a snake,” Kate says-- she will not let herself be afraid of him, not in her dreams. He has no power here unless she gives it to him. “And we all know how the story ends.”

“With rapture,” Richie says.

Kate smiles humorously. “With destruction.”

The scene spirals in blurs of color and noise, but she is only looking at Richie as he asks,“Then why do you still believe?”

“Because I can,” Kate says, wakes to the sound of an alarm blaring and an empty bed.

 

0.

She refuses to dream of him again. She puts on her boots and leaves that behind, the Geckos and their cruelness and their pain.

Months pass. Life makes her wiser, but she holds onto her kindness. The world has taken everything, but it will not take her hope. She still visits church on holy days, repents for all of her sins. She does not take the blood of innocents. There’s a map in red twine of Scott’s path on her bulletin board, green for Seth, blue for Santanico. Tanner’s old notebooks on the Gods piled on her desk. Ranger Gonzalez calls to make sure she eats and doesn’t get herself killed, and life moves on.

When she wakes up one rainy September night to a still smoking Red Apple on her windowsill, she stands cautiously and turns on the nightstand light. Grabs the stake from under her pillow and approaches the window in a crouch, making sure it’s clear before she sighs irritably, puts the cigarette out on the frame and opens the windows wider.

“Do you even dream anymore?” she asks the darkness, stake still clutched between her fingers.

The night answers her with a chuckle. “Only of you.”

Kate smiles without humour. “I’m not fit for cruelty,” she says.

“Maybe you’re fit to save it.”

“Are you asking me for redemption?” she asks, scanning the trees for him, staying still as he moves out from behind the old willow by the fence like a ghost, walks closer in a slow stride.

When he reaches her, he smiles. “Didn’t Seth?” he asks.

“He didn’t know how,” Kate murmurs.

Richie sighs, reaches out until he’s touching the side of her face softly, skin cold. “You’d let me ruin you if it meant saving me,” he whispers.

Closing her eyes, Kate exhales softly, leaning her cheek into his palm longingly before pulling away, pressing the stake up between them, directly over his heart. “No,” she says, shocking him. “You don’t get to have that kind of power. You don’t get to take anything else.”

“Then would you give it to me if I asked?” he says, and his eyes shine glass blue in the moonlight.

“What are you asking for?” she hisses.

“Your trust,” Richie whispers.

Kate bites her lip, ice seizing her chest, holds his gaze and leans forwards slightly, in the clutches of temptation. Richie doesn’t pull away, even when she’s a breath from his lips and the tip of the stake is digging into his skin as she pauses and gazes at him soundly. “Have you ever considered that maybe you shouldn’t trust me?” she asks.

He lets her pull away then, stands stoically as she shuts the window in his face.

“Never trust your brother, either,” Kate throws over her shoulder with a snort, crawls back into bed and turns out the light.

 

 

 


End file.
